Can exposition ever be done right? Any examples? SHOW, DON'T TELL!!

most of the characters DON'T need to get developed. there is such thing as human props. the only characters that needed and got development were cobb, mal, and fischer.

True. Plus, I did forget about Mal and Fischer. Fischer was handled pretty well.

opposite of exposition

Sergio Leone's movies are great in that regard in general. In this case I like how he manages to present the MC as a morally grey character without having him say a word for the first ten minutes of the movie.

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I thought the movie in the second panel was Blade Runner 2049 and I was about to shit myself in anger and go full apeshit.

All people who watch e-celebs deserve painful deaths

You’re just jealous you never got popular, awesomeman1992.

Expository montage?

the whole reason movies explain everything like we're all retards now is specifically because of people like Douge LITERALLY SCREAMING at the top of their lungs about nothing being explained.

High Life is the worst recent example I can think of. There's very little exposition to the point of frustration at times. But there are also a couple of scenes of the worst, most contrived expository scenes imaginable. Nevermind the narration...

This
Cringe

Inception is literally the worst dialogue and exposition of a hollywood film. It wrote the book on how not to do it. It's only really superseded by Nolan's newer films.

>wrote the book on how not to do it
Curious about your thoughts, user

You can get away with tell, don't show if you have an amazing actor who could pull it off, but most modern day Hollywood movies, even with their bloated budgets, can't find the time to properly show the audience about backstory or plot and would rather just tell it. It's quick, easy and just plain stupid.

To answer op's question. Say what you will about Tarantino, but at least he shows flashbacks to showcase exposition when a character tells another character something important. Look at his script for Natural Born Killers 2bh, one of his first of three scripts he wrote back in the late 80s. Haven't seen the movie, but you see him do it in Kill Bill, Basterds, Django and even the dick sucking scene in The Hateful Eight.

Every single conversation in that film is unnatural and awkward and only serves to give the audience information. They may as well be robots. Go back and watch it again if you don't believe me

>show don't tell
This is a guideline, and only that, because hollywood's so shitty that they'd have a character narrate 90% of the story and only show the cool action scenes if they thought they could get away with it.
In reality, you can tell instead of show as long as you do it well.
See: The Booth At The End

you think they both can't be right? You one of the retards that thinks middle ground doesnt exist? You have to be extreme right or left?

Fuck off retard

your statin ta see pictuas now ain't ya?

Just saw it last week and the dialogue is very stilted at times. The conversation Cobb has with Mal before Cobb does his Bond impression in the beginning was cringey.

Or this line: "A man I once met in a half-remembered dream."

Like you said, it just serves the plot. Many people regard Nolan's characters as plot devices and I can see that. The only time I cared for his characters was when I saw Insomnia for the first time. The difference is he didn't write it.

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This.
You can also combine it.
Like for example "Damn it Stephenson! You're a loose cannon!" is a classic example of both being done at the same time. On one hand, it tells the audience that the cop with an edge they probably have only been following for upwards of 10 minutes when this line is spoken makes it his business to cross lines and his recent behaviour (if the movie bothered to show him walk the edge yet) is his modus operandi. Again, that's telling.
Yet at the same time, by having the commissioner call the cop out and possibly having cops outside the office give meaningful looks of agreement or disagreement with the commissioner, we get more than just what is being told us. In addition to learning he's a cop with an edge, we also learn how the commissioner sees him and how his colleagues and possibly people in general see him.
While tell by itself can be done badly ("Allow me to list off all these qualities about the main character without emotion from a dossier"), it can be used to show the settings reaction to the hero while being told of the hero's past actions.

(Of course the "You're a loose cannon" example is ridiculously cliche, but it's something literally everyone will be able to imagine. Any other context where telling is done through the setting's reaction of the hero can be done in a way where it shows us important things.)

ahem

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t-b-h, if another character lists off the attributes of another character, then it'd be okay. If it's done well. But if one character lists of his/her own attributes, as if to explain to the audience why they're a badass, then that's cringey and forced.

youtube.com/watch?v=bHKE_L76JG4

for me that film is exposition done perfectly

Yeah probably if a character lists their attributes it's going to be bad, but honestly I don't think the rule for making it good is that simple.
It really depends on the exact circumstances, and whether there is more to it than a summary of things the writer wants us to take for granted.

Like again imagine a movie about a fugitive with four different versions of the opening, all of which is someone reading the exact same dossier on the fugitive, and cop cars speed off to chase after the fugitive with cuts to the person reading.
Opening 1:
>Generic police dispatch guy, bottom of the credits, exists only for the opening scene, when cut to him he's just reading the stuff in his hands into the microphone slumped to the side in his chair just doing his job
Opening 2:
>The police officer who's in charge of the case and will be the one hot on the heels reading it, emphasizing specific crimes like murder or breaking or entering, adding in flowery language to describe what a piece of shit the fugitive is and that they need to get him in the name of justice
Opening 3:
>Criminal monologuing his dossier's contents apathetically, either because he's a sociopath and doesn't care, or because he believes the contents don't matter because he was set up
Opening 4:
>Criminal monologues his dossier but putting passion into it, emphasising crimes either with disgust because he was set up and he finds the very thought of being associated with such crimes repulsive, or because he's a sadist and takes pleasure in the gruesome details of his crimes, possibly even adding in details that are not in his dossier as commentary

All four of them would on the tin give the same info, but while 1 and 3 would just give us the bare minimum and would establish the crimes, 2 and 4 when acted properly would give us insight into a core character in addition to telling us about the criminal past which very well might be there to establish our fugitive is a trained combatant, a safe cracker etc

Dark City: Director's Cut.
Rather than spell out the entire plot in the first scene, like the theatrical version did, it allows the characters to reveal the information to eachother when the plot demands it, and by that point (when the 3 main characters are in the boat together) it's only for those who didn't notice the organic exposition in the memory encoding scene (when they dangled the scientist over the pit inside the superstructure).

Dummy

Vox Lux did an incredible job with revealing its exposition, if anyone's curious

Reading is also a no-no.

The House That Jack Built

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first act of TFA

Inception is possibly the worst possible example of exposition done well. It’s an awful movie.

Unironically Alita.

Most writers can't do exposition.
If Joe is an alcoholic you don't have someone walk in and say "Golly Joe, you've got an alcohol problem. Remember when you hit that girl on her bike?"
What you do instead is write something like "Joe reaches under his bed for his ringing phone, dozens of AA Chips scattered across the floor."
It's that simple, but harder when you're introducing all this fantasy and sci fi shit.

This is a pretty good example actually

That's literally what every hack in hollywood does
>it's so great, look I'm not telling you, I'm showing the most obvious in your face literal realisation of what I'm saying!
A good way to do it is to actually just have him casually drinking a beer frequently without drawing any attention to it

Is the movie all exposition?

have sex incel lmao

No, the opposite. The film is told through narration. But
a. The narration only really introduces the scenes and spends a lot more time on a dialogue
b. The narration doesn't directly tell you what the film is about despite being the only thing to tell you what the film is about while the visuals are basically just examples portraying what Jack is talking about

IF ONLY I HAD SEPARATE PARTS
MY CAREER WOULD BE THE ARTS

That's what exposition is supposed to do, nigger.

Fuck, I miss main characters who barely speak.

The subtleness is on director/cinematographer.

What's wrong with that line?

True Detective season 1. It was magnificently done.

Exposition is only bad when it's laid on thick. What is necessary is normal exposition tempered with visual storytelling and atmosphere. That is very important.

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The delivery of exposition was moreso about informing the viewers of the characters now that I think about it , it was more about how they said things than what they said

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Yikes!

Yea in film school we did a week on breaking down why LOTR movies sucked.
That opener was definitely mentioned.
heh.

How was it bad? You film school cunts are all faggots.

audiobooks aren't film.

Upstream Color

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>SHOW, DON'T TELL!!
Movie X opening.
"Shows" text introdution.
REEEEEEEEEEEE

Movie Y opening.
Voice "tells" story.
REEEEEEEEEEEE

You can't win. If you tell or show, it doesn't matter, they will never be pleased.

Not Game Of Thrones.

Watch Black Summer. Everything you need to understand is passed to you either by the on-screen action or characters talking in a totally organic manner. There's one episode that might have 3 lines of dialogue. It's fucking amazing.

This. All conveyed visually, not only ehat the setting is, but also what the characters represent within the narrative.

Pictured: the futility of human achievement in light of the god-man.

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A good narrator can do the trick just fine.

youtube.com/watch?v=r2gY_e1ZKD8
youtube.com/watch?v=q4jC5FZPSX0

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did they

Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?

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>gets Blade Runner 2049 and The Last Airbender mixed up
>tbf so did i

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Terminator is a great example

just fucking do it already spoony 2/3 is not good enough and its so obvious you like to with your countless times wearing makeup

this is the most redundant post i've ever read. what exactly were you trying to convey here? i guess i shouldn't try to apply any semblance of reasoning to a poster who uses anime reaction images, as from what i can tell you're all extremely nimble minded

The intro to Pacific Rim is perfect exposition.

>Can exposition ever be done right?

Star Wars Episode 4. Obi-Wan telling Luke is all exposition to explain what's happened before then.

Then they showed it and it was worse.

Reminder that Doug Walker thinks that The Amazing Spider-man and The Amazing Spider-man 2 are better films that the Kino Spider-man 2.

He was a good friend.

youtube.com/watch?v=gdlfI9w5cH0

The Wachowskis used to be the masters of exposition. The key is not having it just be a person explaining verbally. There's the fact that the sequence is visually interesting, the idea that there's an in universe reason for this to exist and terrify the person experiencing it, which pairs our emotional engagement with Neo's so that we're processing the information through the character's reaction.

it is if its on film

Narration is the hallmark of a bad filmmaker.

Apocalypse Now and Goodfellas are now bad films

exposition needs to be done in multitasking during interesting stuff.

Now?

Good point

user...why?

Star Wars Text Crawl. If narration is bad, then they literally "show, not tell" and it's up to you to read what is shown.

NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGERNIGGER NIGGER NIGGER

I just rewatched Hunchback of Notre Dame. The opening number does nothing but explain Quasimodo's backstory, but it's still an amazing sequence.

But reading is bad also for the illiterate among us

Manhunter's opening scene had Graham describe the murder of the first family. It was literally him talkng to his tape recorder and all you see is the blood smeared on the floor and walls. But the atmosphere is tense and gripping and an active imagination can play out the slaughter without actually seeing it.

it's not you, it's me.
a screenwriter told me the problem isn't the writing, it's the audience. the audience is fucking stupid. everything needs to be dumbed down so they can hit and capture the target demo.
unless you're terrence malick, you don't have a built-in literate audience who will patiently wait for the story to unfold. the oscar-bait crowd will also tolerate and appreciate artistic construction. but it's either feast or famine: if you miss the cut for awards season then you'll have trouble getting a commission or selling spec (and studios aren't lining up to buy IP-less spec anymore).
so you're a screenwriter and you would enjoy continued employment. your screenplay isn't intuitive so you dumb it down. maybe the movie opens will a montage. maybe you settle for brief text. maybe you need a voice-over narrator. but the cardinal sin is challenging an audience. they aren't there to think. if they wanted to read they'd go to school. and half the people will be on their phones anyway. so you submit a script written for an IQ of 90, the studio cuts the check, and your family eats. some losers on a korean boardgames forum call you out, but that's fine. you could write kino but there's no one left to pay for it. and you're on a deadline for FAST & FURIOUS: THE FINAL INSULT so there's no bandwidth to finish that character study kino of johnny sins anyway.

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That was uncalled for.

It's not always intelligence. Not everything can be translated into +/-60 languages so well. Remember, these countries make own "deep" movies that you or me wouldn't understand, sometimes because of history or certain customs.
American movies are mostly watched because of budgets and production scale - something their local film industry can't afford. That's why people expect dumb visual spectacle. I'm 100% sure they prefer Transformers fighting with SuperMan than some drama about Luther King they don't care about.

Is there a reason as to why he lost from losing a finger and ring when he was alive before he had them. Also the fact that he didnt just smash his face in with a weapon.

Shits dumb

Shut up faggot, go watch your watered down adaptation again and tell me how deep it is.

Or you could just let everything go past the low IQs and who gives a shit. But naw, we gotta sell sell sell that product!

WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE VEGAS!??

memento

good shit

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BAAAAAAGH. GAAAAAAAAGH BAAAAAAAGHADAP. I DON'T GET IT.

Wait so the surfer guy wants to be all hippe and peace and love about everything? What a pussy go punch that guy for taking his sister home that you literally met a week ago

You can do both "show" and "tell" if either one is "natural" to the scene. Exposition in general is good if both the audience and the character doesn't know something and the person informing both is doing so that a real person with said knowledge would tell.

>Sauron just fucking explodes like in a video game

He's in the next Avengers movie.

The Big Short

>alcoholics casually drink a beer too often
Fucking normies.

BvS

Children of men first scene

>Or you could just let everything go past the low IQs and who gives a shit.

Well sorry mate, this ain't fucking socialism where government forces people to read and be smart since fucking school.
Nobody is gonna babysit your "I am so smart" ass.

can't believe no one has posted the correct answer:
youtube.com/watch?v=pUaxXsqGeFI

This scene has to not only explain a fair amount of backstory for 3 different characters, but has to introduce and sell the audience the concepts of lightsabers, "Jedi Knights", and the fucking Force. It's easy to take for granted now how all of those things are so ingrained in our pop culture that we practically already know these things before we can walk, but back in 1977 no one knew what he fuck any of this shit was. The movie really lived or died on this scene. If it failed to sell the audience on just 1 of thoes things then the movie falls apart. But somehow it accomplishes every single one of the things I mentioned in under 2 fucking minutes.
also this was way harder to find a clip of than I thought it would be, all the results were shitty fanedits that had flashbacks to the prequels added every 5 seconds. Imagine actually thinking you could improve this scene. Fuck.

>Can exposition ever be done right?

youtu.be/BDha7nj4s10

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user, ever read a story regarding a bear family of 3?

When Sauron created the One Ring, he put a significant portion of his soul/essence into it. If it isn't on his person, he loses a huge part of himself too. Which is why it took him thousands of years to get back to the point of rising again.

This. For a country known for loud, expressive and blabbermouthed people and bombastic operas, a lot of their directors have that talent of showing things rather than telling in the smoothest and slickest way possible

Sergio was a rarity there. Italian cinema tends towards over the top stuff.

Have you seen Leone's Once Upon A Time in America yet? It's not a Western but a gangster movie but the film-making's so fucking good. There's a whole section wherein Robert De Niro looks in a mirror and it's suddenly 20 years later and as he walks around his old neighbourhood there's barely a word of dialogue and yet you completely understand what the main character's thinking. I don't know if Leone was the all-time greatest director but as far as pure visual storytelling goes I think he was the best of all time.

Explain stuff that doesn't matter
Show what does

I disagree, the original Star Wars as an isolated movie does not hinge on that exposition scene panning out. You could remove lightsabers, Jedi, and the Force from that movie and it still would have been just as successful. What this exposition does succeed at is planting seeds of curiosity that would go on to form the foundation of the series mythology. Without these aspects Star Wars probably would never been much more than a flash in the pan success and would have faded into obscurity with the sequels not being that popular.

I meant in disclosing exposition. At least regarding cowboy films.

Literally nothing.

Steven Moffat is great at exposition

I think it depends on the topic of the movie. If it's an Italian movie about Italians (see Bicycle thieves or Malena), it will be loud as fuck. But take Visconti's death in Venice and it's the absolute opposite.
Haven't seen it, but thanks for the rec, I'll give it a look